Tactical Flashlight Knife

Product Description

Features

• 3-inch, 50/50 serrated stainless steel with satin blade bead blast finish
• Flashlight has directional hands-free magnetic base
• Loud emergency signal whistle
• Flashlight is waterproof for shallow immersion and is ideal for work in low light situations
• Rugged liner style lock and pocket/belt clip

Top Reviews

Nice Combination, but bulky
by A. Tegtmeier (3 out of 5 stars)
January 31, 2011

This is kind of an odd combination - a flashlight strapped to a knife. Who needs somethings like that? The whole package is of course somewhat bulky, and I would not necessarily carry this around in my back-pocket.

Instead, I put it in my car, as a kind of low level emergency tool kit. And for that purpose, it actually makes sense.

The knife itself is sharp but not ultra-sharp, sturdy but not indestructible, the blade is of relatively cheap steel, which probably won't hold sharpness very long when used regularly. The handle, with the strapped on flashlight case, is actually more comfortable to grip then I expected. But if you have smaller hands then my XL-pawns, you might not find it such a good fit.

The flashlight sits very tight (it has a rubber seal) in the case and I had to really yank it hard to get it out of there.

The brightness is not stadium-floodlight-quality, but what can you expect from such a tiny unit? It is more suited to help you find the keyhole at your front door then to help you navigate through a dark parking garage.

It will stick to a metallic surface, which might come in handy in certain situations.

The whistle is a gimmick, I surely would not know when to use it. This probably was tacked on because it gave the knife an additional "functionality" for a very small design and production effort.

All in all, this knife-flashlight-whistle combination is not a bad idea, but certainly not something you would carry around in your back-pocket. But as a low level contingency/emergency tool in the house or in the carr, it could serve you well.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Flashlight Good , Knife Bad
by Baseline (2 out of 5 stars)
October 22, 2012

The Flashlight is a pretty cool item. Feels substantial, and is relatively bright for how small it is.

On the other hand, the knife is a complete piece of garbage. I have bought better knives at Circle K. Blade is loose and has a lot of play. I bought this to give as a gift to a friend and now I cant, I would be much too embarrassed to hand him this pile of horribleness.
↭ 🍁 ↭
not worth it
by John boury (1 out of 5 stars)
May 21, 2014

Knife arrived today. Flashlight doesn't work. overall just a general disappointment. The knife feels and looks cheap and poorly made.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Nice knife, but flashlight is useless, falls off
by M. Mostov (2 out of 5 stars)
July 7, 2010

I like how this knife feels in the hand, and the fact that it's very easy to snap open with either hand, left or right.

However the add-on flashlight is pretty much useless. The beam is underpowered, and if you twist the head too much - it falls out of the socket, together with batteries and few other small parts... and then good luck finding them all in the dark...

So I'd give 4-5 stars for the knife, and 0 for the flashlight.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Very cheap knife
by Mr. Corpuz (3 out of 5 stars)
May 31, 2012

This is a knife that you cannot take camping or a knife that is durable enough to use on a daily basis. It is simply a good father's day gift or a simple knife to be used and stored in a tool box. I didn't give it a one-star rating because the idea behind the knife is brilliant. However, the actual knife needs to be better built. The handle is plastic and doesn't seem to be very hardy. The flashlight is flimsy in that it doesn't seem to turn on and off appropriately, but when it does turn on the light is bright enough for me to see a few inches ahead of me (small light). The whistle could be a lot louder as compared to a normal silver whistle. The actual steel of the knife seems to be very nice (the only good thing about this knife). Overall, its an okay knife, but am looking for something more sturdy.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Cheap crap
by Pollock (1 out of 5 stars)
March 17, 2013

This knife is a piece of crap.the flashlight does not turn on all the time and the swivel bracket for the light falls off. Its all made of plastic except for the blade of course. Blade is not stable. Feels like a kids toy. Worth bout 5.00
↭ 🍁 ↭
Broken...
by Sean Mozisek (1 out of 5 stars)
August 26, 2013

Flashlight never worked...bought new batteries and still does not work. Was a gift so couldnt take back, oh well, it is what it is.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Batteries dead on arrival
by Terry (3 out of 5 stars)
May 11, 2013

The knife is a good knife and I like it. But it arrived with the flashlight batteries dead. The light is not bright so will not use it for situations where I need a bright light. Will work okay for something like finding your door lock. Would have given it four stars if the batteries weren't dead.
↭ 🍁 ↭
Handy? Yes. Worth it? No.
by Tyson (2 out of 5 stars)
February 2, 2011

It's actually a really smart idea attaching a flashlight to a knife. Even in pitch darkness the little light can shine up a small room pretty well. It's firmly in place (unlike another reviewer said, it is impossible for the flashlight to "fall off" so he must have had a different model). The light is always directed at the blade so you know where you're pointing the thing and can easily see what you're cutting. Unfortunately, for the shockingly expensive price tag of $40 or even Amazon.com discount of $25, it just isn't worth it.

The Pros:
- Flashlight is bright, effectively pointed, never falls off.
- Handy. Given you find yourself in an extreme situation where you need a knife, it is likely you will also need a flashlight. The combination of the two is useful and great.

The cons:
- Dull knife (it is sharp, don't get me wrong, but for $40 you should expect better).
- Dangerous (as others have mentioned, the blade flops out really really really easily, making it accident-prone).
- Expensive (Waaaaaay too expensive. At $10 I would feel less guilty and at $5 I might even recommend getting one.. but as long as the asking price is $15 and up, I call this product a rip-off).

Overall, the only good (and safe) spot I can think to keep this is in the glove compartment of my car. You never know when you need to cut off a seat belt, survive in the wilderness, or stab an approaching zombie. In any of those cases, I think this knife would be helpful. I don't know that it's actually sharp enough to easily cut through a seat belt, but I'm guessing it would do the trick if you sawed at it long enough. Probably the most helpful thing about it is the flashlight, though. Even if you aren't using the knife for anything, it is quite bright for such a tiny thing. I just hope I won't accidentally stab myself with the loose blade.
↭ 🍁 ↭
A two dollar blade with trinkets
by Storm the Penguin (1 out of 5 stars)
January 25, 2011

I'm a bit of a knife hound and I generally stay away from these cheaper blades, but every once and a while you find a gem hidden in the rough. Unfortunately the Tool Logic SL1 I received is not one of these gems. Instead, take a cheap blade, add an underpowered flashlight, a whistle and a cheap, overly bulky housing, and you get the SL1.
*Note: I have several images posted up on this knife, but for some reason they aren't showing up properly on the item. You have to go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B0001WC6LS/ in order to see them.*

The Blade
------------------------------------

The blade is a standard 50/50 serrated/plain edged combo and comes semi-sharp - the blade is not dull but it's not razor sharp either. I could not find the metal make-up of the stainless steel they use in the blade listed anywhere, but the metal seems pretty soft; tapping the blade against the flashlight's housing caused noticeable nicks on the edge (and by "tapping" I mean tapping - not a hard slam or anything). I did the same test with one of my Benchmade knives just to be sure I wasn't being unfair - the Benchmade had zero edge damage. However Benchmade is known for some solid knives so I did a more dollar-for-dollar comparison by using my Victorinox 47520 Fibrox 8-Inch Chef's Knife - also no nicks. However with all soft metals, it was easy to repair back to a sharp edge. Just be prepared resharpen a lot.

This is a minor complaint but it's worth noting that the non-blade edges of the blade were also pretty sharp. Generally when you purchase a quality knife, the stamped edges are given at least a cursory file down to remove the sharp corners. The edges on this blade feel as if the blade was pushed out of its stamp, had the extra flash removed and nothing else. Out of the box, you could remove paint from a wall using the backside of the blade. Why does this matter? Well, I'm assuming that the SL1 was meant to be an everyday carry knife (EDC). Given any amount of friction, the non-finished edges of this knife will chew through your pockets.

The Flashlight
------------------------------------

The flashlight is pretty horrible. It was hard to tell exactly how horrible until I put it against some of my other flashlights. First up was a free keychain I got with my Stanley 95-155 3-in-1 Tripod LED Flashlight
. Against this little keychain, the knife's light wasn't too bad except for the fact that it was so diffuse. The LED did not have a very intense focal spot and therefore if you wanted a specific area lit up well, you need to have the light pretty close. The light is powerful enough to shed light on an object 7ft away increasing the illumination by one or two light levels in a dark room, but useful range is probably closer to 3ft max. Compared to the Streamlight 73001 Nano Light Miniature Keychain LED Flashlight, Black
... well, there was no comparison. The Nano simply blew the SL1's flashlight away (see picture).

The only added benefit of the SL1's flashlight is the magnetized base clip. It's an innovative idea which does actually add some functionality to the light. I'm not sure about using the magnet as an item picker-upper like they have illustrated in their product shots; mostly because the surface area of the magnet is so small. However the magnet was able to hold the SL1 (obviously without the weight of the flashlight and batteries) + Spyderco Police 3 G-10 Plain Edge Knife, Black
, but not much else - so the total lifting limit of the magnet is probably somewhere around 15oz. which isn't bad at all.

The Handle
------------------------------------

Due to the inclusion of the flashlight the body of this knife feels pretty bulky - in fact, the handle comes in at a thickness of 5/8 of an inch - larger than some full-sized multitools. In addition there is only a light texturing on the body's surface, so slip could potentially come into play in less than ideal conditions. The fact that the body is made of plastic doesn't bother me too much - it helps keep the overall weight of the knife down. Unfortunately it just feels too big.

The whistle? I don't know.. it's a whistle. It seems loud enough. I'm sure it'd get people's attention if you blew on it hard enough.

The Drop Test (Failed)
------------------------------------

One of the most important tests for any folder is the drop test - ie: dropping the knife from a closed position to the ground. A well constructed knife with a good folding device should not open when dropped. It's common sense - if you drop your knife, the last thing you want is for the sharp blade to drop on your foot. Dropping the SL1 from a closed position at a distance of approximately three feet, the blade was more than half open and fully exposed each time upon landing (it did not seem to matter which part of the knife hit the ground). Assuming that perhaps the screws got loosened in transit, I verified that all screws were fully tightened - same result.

Failing just this test disqualifies this knife for consideration as an everyday carry in my eyes.

Conclusion
------------------------------------

The SL1 failed the drop test which completely takes it out of the running for consideration as a EDC for me. Unfortunately this seems to be the intended primary function of the SL1, thus the one star rating from me.

Is this knife useless? Well no knife is really useless, but if you were considering this knife as a simple utility knife, at the current cost of twenty five dollars, there are so many more quality options. They may not be the all-in-one flashlight-whistle-knife that the SL1 is, but I'm betting that they'll fill their one or two roles better than the SL1 fills its three.

*If this is not the "Tactical Flashlight Knife" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link.  Details were last updated on Dec 28, 2024 03:45 +08.